White House officials said Monday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will stay in his job for now, but will meet with the president Thursday to discuss the tensions that officials said nearly led to his departure earlier in the day.
Multiple officials said that during a series of conversations over the weekend between and among White House and Justice Department officials, it appeared Rosenstein planned to resign on Monday, in the wake of reports that he had once suggested secretly recording the president and mounting an effort within the Cabinet to remove him from office.
During some of those conversations, Rosenstein indicated that his resignation might be warranted to end the controversy, according to people familiar with the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
When Rosenstein went to the White House on Monday morning, senior advisers to President Donald Trump expected him to resign, according to several advisers. A Justice Department official, however, said that he had no intention of resigning but went there with the expectation he would be fired.
The two sides decided instead to hold another meeting.
"At the request of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he and President Trump had an extended conversation to discuss the recent news stories," said White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders. "Because the president is at the United Nations General Assembly and has a full schedule with leaders from around the world, they will meet on Thursday when the president returns to Washington, D.C."
Trump said he's looking forward to the meeting. "We'll be determining what's going on," Trump told reporters at the United Nations on Monday. "We want to have transparency, we want to have openness and I'm looking forward to meeting with Rod at that time."
Trump didn't answer a question about what may happen to Rosenstein.
"I spoke with Rod today and we're going to have a meeting on Thursday when I get back to the White House," he said.
After Rosenstein met with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, he proceeded to a meeting of senior administration officials, indicating that at least for the moment, he was staying on the job.
Any termination or resignation would have immediate implications for special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of possible collaboration between Russia and the Trump campaign before the 2016 election. Rosenstein appointed Mueller and oversees his investigation.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose private memos document comments made by Rosenstein, said Monday that he was concerned that a Rosenstein departure would put the investigation at risk.
"There is nothing more important to the integrity of law enforcement and the rule of law than protecting the investigation of special counsel Mueller," McCabe said in a statement. "I sacrificed personally and professionally to help put the investigation on a proper course and subsequently made every effort to protect it."
REPLACEMENT PLANS
Amid the conflicting accounts of whether Rosenstein would resign, be fired, or still be in his job at the end of the week, it was clear that his position at the Justice Department had never been more tenuous.
One Trump adviser said the president has not been pressuring Rosenstein to leave. The person said Rosenstein had expressed to others that he should resign because he "felt very compromised" and the controversy hurt his ability to oversee the Russia inquiry, said a person close to Trump.
When White House officials believed over the weekend that Rosenstein was about to depart, they planned to tap Matt Whitaker, the chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, to become the acting deputy attorney general, while oversight of the Russia investigation would pass to someone else -- Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the No. 4 official at the Justice Department.
Rosenstein has been the target of Trump's public ire and private threats for months, but uncertainty about his future deepened after it was revealed Friday that memos written by McCabe when he was FBI deputy director said that in May 2017, Rosenstein suggested secretly recording the president and invoking the 25th Amendment to replace him.
McCabe memorialized discussions he had with Rosenstein and other senior officials in the stress-packed days immediately after James Comey's firing as FBI director. At that moment, the FBI was deeply suspicious of Rosenstein's role in the decision, and the Justice Department was worried that it had lost credibility with Congress for giving Trump a memo that said the FBI needed new leadership.
The Justice Department issued two statements from Rosenstein denying the remarks and released a separate statement from someone who said he recalled the recording comment but insisted that it was meant sarcastically.
Others involved in those May 2017 discussions said Rosenstein's comments about secretly recording the president were sarcastic and came as McCabe was pressing the Justice Department to investigate the president's firing of Comey as possible obstruction of justice.
In statements Friday, Rosenstein denied that he ever seriously contemplated secretly recording the president or pursuing the 25th Amendment to replace the president, as was first reported by The New York Times.
TRUMP SOUNDS OFF
For more than a year, Trump's public and private comments about the Russia investigation have led to speculation and concern that Rosenstein could be fired.
Rosenstein, a Republican and career Justice Department official who had served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, came into office on a wave of bipartisan support, but Comey was fired soon afterward, and Rosenstein was immediately drawn into fierce partisan battles surrounding the Russia inquiry.
Rosenstein became deputy attorney general in April 2017 and assumed oversight of Mueller's investigation after Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who did not disclose to Congress that he had met during the 2016 campaign with Russia's ambassador to the United States, recused himself from the inquiry involving the election.
Just days into his job as the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, Rosenstein wrote a memo criticizing Comey's handling of the earlier investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for government work when she was secretary of state.
The White House used Rosenstein's memo to justify Comey's firing. Days later, Rosenstein appointed Mueller, and the special counsel has since been examining the firing of Comey and whether it was part of a pattern of behavior that amounts to obstruction of justice by the president.
Rosenstein's decisions, including the renewal of a warrant to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser, have prompted furious Twitter outbursts from the president. "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director!" he has written.
Some of the president's most outspoken supporters have railed against Rosenstein. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., at one point described the deputy attorney general and former Justice Department officials as "traitors to our nation."
Democrats and many Republicans have warned Trump against any attempt to assume control of or shut down Mueller's investigation, either by firing Rosenstein to appoint a pliable successor or dismissing Mueller directly. And they have said the president risks sparking a constitutional crisis if he tries to derail the inquiry.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said Mueller's probe needs additional protection in light of Rosenstein's possible departure.
"The Senate must step up to protect the Special Counsel immediately," she said in a tweet. "We must pass the bipartisan bill to protect the Mueller investigation. The American people deserve answers about Russian interference in our democracy."
"This story must not be used as a pretext for the corrupt purpose of firing Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein in order install an official who will allow the president to interfere with the special counsel's investigation," Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York said.
A number of Republicans also voiced support for Rosenstein.
John Cornyn Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said Rosenstein has "done a good job in a tough position. But it's not my call." He added, though, that it would be "problematic" for Trump to win Senate confirmation of a successor as deputy attorney general.
Information for this article was contributed by Devlin Barrett, Ashley Parker, Carol D. Leonnig, Rosalind S. Helderman, Sari Horwitz, Matt Zapotosky and Robert Barnes of The Washington Post; by Zeke Miller, Eric Tucker, Michael Balsamo, Chad Day and Jon Lemire of The Associated Press; and by Greg Stohr, Chris Strohm, Terrence Dopp, Jennifer Epstein and Sahil Kapur of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 09/25/2018